The $11.5 Million Figure
Chris Pine was paid $11.5 million for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, according to Variety’s August 2021 survey of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars. ScreenRant’s write-up placed the number in context: 16th on the list, $8.5 million more than Robert Pattinson’s $3 million for The Batman in 17th, and a step below Keanu Reeves’s $12–14 million for The Matrix Resurrections. At the very top sat Daniel Craig’s $100 million for two Knives Out sequels — nearly nine times Pine’s payday.
What makes the $11.5 million interesting is what it represented: the established quote of a dependable, likable leading man who had headlined two major franchises (Star Trek as Captain Kirk, Wonder Woman as Steve Trevor) without ever becoming a $20 million-a-picture superstar. Pine occupied the tier just below the top bracket — the actors studios hire when they want a proven quantity at a manageable price. For a $150 million fantasy epic, $11.5 million for the lead was, by blockbuster standards, almost restrained.
Honor Among Thieves: The Film
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves arrived in March 2023 carrying the weight of a notoriously difficult adaptation. The tabletop game, created in 1974 by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, had spawned novels, video games, and streaming phenomena like Critical Role — whose 2019 Kickstarter raised over $11 million — but never a successful film. Directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (the Game Night duo), the movie took the wise approach of telling an original story: Pine as Edgin Darvis, a charming bard leading a band of misfits — Michelle Rodriguez’s barbarian Holga, Regé-Jean Page’s paladin Xenk, Justice Smith’s sorcerer Simon, Sophia Lillis’s druid Doric — on a heist to recover a lost relic, opposed by Hugh Grant’s scheming Forge Fitzwilliam.
Critics loved it. The film earned some of the best reviews of any blockbuster that year, praised for its wit, heart, and genuine affection for the source material — Pine’s comic timing as the fast-talking bard drew particular praise. Commercially, though, it faltered: roughly $208 million worldwide against a production budget around $150 million, before marketing. It was, as Pine’s Wikipedia entry bluntly notes, “a critical but not a commercial success” — the kind of outcome that makes a leading man’s $11.5 million salary look, in retrospect, like the film’s safest investment.
Pine’s Path to $11.5 Million
Pine’s quote was built the old-fashioned way: a decade and a half of steady leading roles. He rose to prominence in romantic comedies — The Princess Diaries 2 (2004), Just My Luck (2006) — before landing the career-defining role of James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek (2009), which he carried through two sequels. He was the fourth actor to play Jack Ryan (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, 2014), anchored Tony Scott’s Unstoppable (2010) opposite Denzel Washington, earned some of the best reviews of his career for Hell or High Water (2016), and played Steve Trevor opposite Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman (2017) and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020).
What Pine never quite became was a $20 million man — and that, paradoxically, was his commercial strength. He was the actor studios called when they wanted star presence without star pricing: reliable, versatile, funny, and professional. The $11.5 million for D&D reflected exactly that positioning — more than double what an unproven lead would command, well below what a franchise anchor costs. It was the salary of a working movie star, the kind Hollywood used to mint by the dozen and now produces only occasionally.
The Pattinson Comparison
The most quoted juxtaposition on Variety’s list was Pine versus Pattinson: $11.5 million against $3 million, 16th against 17th, for two actors headlining major 2022–2023 franchise films. The gap illustrated how differently the market prices experience versus potential. Pine was being paid for a known quantity — fifteen years of carrying films, two franchises, a reputation for elevating material. Pattinson was being paid for a bet — a prestigious indie actor taking on Batman for the first time, with the studio holding back until he proved the casting.
History rendered its verdict on both numbers. The Batman grossed over $770 million, making Pattinson’s $3 million look like the bargain of the decade and virtually guaranteeing a massive raise for the sequel. Honor Among Thieves, despite its quality, did not perform, making Pine’s $11.5 million look — through no fault of his performance — like money the film could not quite earn back. Same list, same year, opposite outcomes: a reminder that salaries are priced on expectations, and expectations are only sometimes right.
The Economics of a $150 Million Gamble
Step back and the $11.5 million reveals the structural challenge of Honor Among Thieves. On a film budgeted around $150 million, the lead actor’s salary was less than 8 percent of the production cost — a modest proportion by blockbuster standards, where a single star can command 15–20 percent. The film’s economics did not fail because of Pine’s paycheck; they failed because a $150 million original fantasy — even one based on a famous game — needs roughly $400 million worldwide to break even after marketing, and the audience, for whatever reason, did not show up at that scale.
There is an argument that Pine’s salary was actually the rational part of the budget. In a genre where the difference between a hit and a miss is often whether audiences trust the human at the center of the spectacle, $11.5 million for a proven, likable lead is insurance — and by all accounts, Pine delivered, with reviews consistently citing his performance as a highlight. The film’s cult afterlife on streaming has only burnished that assessment. Sometimes the star earns his salary even when the movie does not earn its budget.
Where Pine Stands Now
The D&D salary captured Pine at an interesting inflection point. In the years since, he has moved deliberately away from franchise-leading roles: he made his directorial debut with the noir comedy Poolman (2023), voiced the villain King Magnifico in Disney’s Wish (2023), and took his first non-English role (in Italian) in The Kidnapping of Arabella, praised at the 2025 Venice Film Festival. It is the trajectory of an actor less interested in repricing his quote than in spending the capital — financial and reputational — that the quote represents.
And the $11.5 million itself has aged into a kind of time capsule: a number from the last moment when a mid-tier franchise lead could still command eight figures for an original-adjacent blockbuster. As the industry continues to bifurcate into $200 million tentpoles and $20 million streamers, the middle — where Pine made his career, and where $11.5 million was a perfectly sensible salary — keeps shrinking. Honor Among Thieves may not have been a hit, but the economics it embodied are already nostalgia.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did Chris Pine get paid for Dungeons & Dragons?
A reported $11.5 million upfront, per Variety’s August 2021 salary survey — 16th on the trade’s list of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars.
Who reported the $11.5 million figure?
Variety, in its 2021 report. ScreenRant, JoBlo, and Bell of Lost Souls repeated it with the same attribution.
How did it compare to Robert Pattinson’s Batman salary?
Pine earned $8.5 million more: Pattinson was reported at $3 million for The Batman (17th on the same list), reflecting Pine’s fifteen years of leading-man tenure versus Pattinson’s first franchise outing. The market paid Pine for certainty — two franchises carried, a reputation for elevating material — and paid Pattinson for potential, holding back until the casting proved itself.
Was Honor Among Thieves a hit?
Critically, yes — some of the year’s best blockbuster reviews. Commercially, no: about $208M worldwide against a ~$150M budget, a disappointment that left sequel plans uncertain — though the film has since built a devoted cult following on streaming, where audiences discovered what theaters missed.
Who did Pine play in the film?
Edgin Darvis, a charming bard leading a heist crew — alongside Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant as the villain Forge Fitzwilliam.
What are Pine’s biggest roles?
James T. Kirk in the Star Trek reboot trilogy (2009–2016), Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman (2017) and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), plus Hell or High Water (2016) — which earned some of the best reviews of his career — and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), where he became the fourth actor to play Tom Clancy’s analyst-turned-operative.
Did Pine direct anything?
Yes — he made his directorial debut with the noir comedy Poolman (2023), in which he also starred.
Why is the salary notable in hindsight?
It captures the endangered middle tier of Hollywood: a sensible eight-figure salary for a proven lead on a $150M original — the exact budget band the industry has since largely abandoned. As studios split between $200M tentpoles and $20M streamers, the mid-budget star vehicle that sustained careers like Pine’s has become increasingly rare, making the $11.5 million a snapshot of a vanishing economic model.